Monday, July 28, 2008

From the former Soviet Union's number one tabloid, PRAVDA, we get this headline:

Communists worship only ten percent of Lenin’s embalmed body
State Duma deputy Vladimir Medinsky is certain that the Russian authorities have at least four highly serious reasons to bury the body of Vladimir Lenin, the mummy of which is currently resting in Lenin’s Tomb on Moscow’s Red Square.
“Let us not deceive ourselves with illusions of preserving Lenin’s body at Mausoleum. There is only ten percent of his body resting there,” the official said.

Also noted in PRAVDA: McCain is even older than previously believed. We quote:

"We need to improve their behavior," McCain told ABC television when asked about his threat to exclude Russia from the Group of Eight if he wins the White House in November.
The 77-year-old candidate harshly criticized Russia’s foreign policy.

It was only last wk. that we said Washington weasel-dick Robert "The Prince of Darkness" Novak was either demented or an out & out liar.

It may well have been dementia. We still believe him to be a liar, but the brain tumor he's about to die of could have been pressing on his optic nerve, lessening his peripheral vision so that Novak couldn't see the pedestrian he ran over while driving his black convertible Corvette™, either before he hit the guy or when the victim was "sort of splayed into the windshield."

“I know Bob will confront this challenge with the same courage with which he has taken on the political establishment in Washington for decades,” said House Republican Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Sure, John. Here's a perfect example of His Princely Majesty "taking on the political establishment in Washington," by serving as Dick Cheney's mouthpiece. (Take that any way you'd like, vulgarians.)

Novak was criticized after he was the first to publicly reveal the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame in a 2003 column. His column came out eight days after Plame’s husband, Joseph Wilson, said the Bush administration had twisted prewar intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.

House Republican Whip Roy Blunt, of Missouri, said Novak’s record of reporting and commenting on American elections “has never failed to demonstrate keen insight and a peerless political acumen.”

“I want to join the many wishing Bob all the best as he confronts this challenge and a speedy recovery as he looks to resume his work,” Blunt said in a statement.

Any statements from anyone to the left of Attila the Hun? No? OK, let's move along then.

Police said they took the precautions because they had reports that Adkisson was a former member of the Army's 101st Airborne Division. They recovered a handgun at the residence as well as a letter from the state of Tennessee saying Adkisson's food stamps were going to be reduced.

But he served his country. And was receiving food stamps. (Let this serve as a warning to Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services employees thinking of taking away The Editor's measly food stamp allotment, just because he's been granted Social Security disability payments.)

Adkisson, who told police he had no relatives, planned to be killed by police, Owen said.

"He indicated also in that letter that he expected to be in there shooting people until the police arrived and he fully expected to be killed by the responding police," he said.

But attendees were able to tackle him and hold him until police arrived.

Bill Haslem, the mayor of Knoxville, hailed the parishioners for their courage.

"It’s a tragedy for our city, particularly for this church congregation, but the way they reacted both in terms of supporting and in terms of subduing the shooter has really made a horrible situation better because it really could have been much worse," he told FOX News on Monday.

The two slain church members were identified as Greg McKendry and Linda Kraeger.

McKendry, 60, a burly usher "stood in the front of the gunman and took the blast to protect the rest of us," church member Barbara Kemper said.

Didn't take a bunch of "carrying" church-goers to stop the allegedly gay & liberal hating Adkisson. Just one man w/ enough guts to stand up & take a load of shot for others (not un-Christian, surprising for a Xtian) & some more to tackle him. Bear in mind as well that Adkisson was completely ready to commit "suicide by cop." Or by armed church goers. The idea that spree killers will be dissuaded by the possibility of their potential victims being armed is again shown to be bullshit. We're betting that most "carriers" would have been among those cowering under the pews anyway. They live in fear, & should probably die that way as well.

Knoxville police said 58-year-old Jim Adkisson left a four page note, expressing frustration over his inability to get a job and anger at what he described as “the liberal movement.”

The Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, which was the target of Sunday morning’s shooting, has been an advocate for racial and gender equality as well as gay rights. Investigators said it appears the gunman chose this church intentionally and that the case is being investigated as a “hate crime.”

Please note that The Editor here, as well as being a food stamp parasite, is one of those loners w/ problems w/o any close (geographically or otherwise) relatives. Just sayin', y'know. Not a threat, but a warning.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

What hath the Beach Boys wrought? ("Barbara Ann" not actually their composition, but...) We've already mentioned our Carlinian desire for tragedy in Beijing. Is this all merely an introduction to a bigger bang?
VOA News:

High-level security officials met in India, following serial bomb blasts in two large cities. An estimated 25 explosions in Bangalore and Ahmedabad on Friday and Saturday killed more than 45 people and wounded about 100 others.

A typing Ant reports on death, horror, maiming & the like in Istanbul.

Many were injured in the second blast after they rushed to the area to help the casualties of the first explosion in the working class Gungoren neighborhood, witnesses said. The blasts were about 10 minutes apart.
"There is no doubt that this is a terror attack," Gov. Muammer Guler told reporters. "The fact that there was a crowd in the area has increased the number of casualties," he added.

We like people who think ahead & maximize potential. Kurds, jihadis, whomever. More destructive power to them.

1974: The Nix is recommended for impeachment by the House Judiciary Committee, due to the political scandals known as "Watergate."
1953: Armistice ends the Korean Police Action.
1996: Bombing @ Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta during the Summer Olympics. The anarcho-nihilist in us hopes something similar will occur soon in Communist China.
And most important, culturally & otherwise:

On this day in 1940, Bugs Bunny first appears on the silver screen in "A Wild Hare." The wisecracking rabbit had evolved through several earlier short films. As in many future installments of Bugs Bunny cartoons, "A Wild Hare" featured Bugs as the would-be dinner for frustrated hunter Elmer Fudd.
Cartoon animation first appeared in 1908 in France, followed quickly by American cartoons. In 1909, a newspaper cartoon artist named Winsor McCay created Gertie the Dinosaur, the first animated character to appear regularly on the screen. In 1918, McCay produced The Sinking of the Lusitania, the first feature-length cartoon. A variety of recurring cartoons developed by the late teens and early '20s, and these characters became more popular after the development of sound pictures in the late 1920s. Walt Disney introduced the Silly Symphonies cartoons and created Mickey Mouse and his gang. By the mid-1930s, Disney was making feature-length musical cartoons like "Sleeping Beauty."

Under the direction of animation director Tex Avery, Warner Bros. developed its own set of cartoon stars, including Bugs, Elmer, Tweety, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, and many others. Bugs was animated by Chuck Jones, and his famous accent came from legendary voice man Mel Blanc. Blanc started with Warner Bros. in 1937, creating the voices (or sounds) for Bugs, Road Runner, Sylvester, and Tweety Bird, among other characters.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

It's Tammy Bruce! Hope no one was too surprised.
This wk.'s idiocy? In the future, once Sen. Obama is Pres. Obama, we won't want to go outside because there won't be any gas (he wants to tell us how to live, you know) & we'll be scared to go outside anyway because of viruses. The viruses will kill us because of Obama's universal health care. (Completely accurate paraphrase. Check out her podcast if you've a barf bag handy.) To which we can only agree. It's absolutely true that Afro-Asian Moooslims are taking over Europe. You know why? Universal health care has killed all the Euro-Xtians. (The mainstream media is able to cover it all up, becuase no one here in the New World has any contact w/ Eurotrash.)

Much as it galls us to give any credit of any kind to anything even vaguely "religious," we feel we should give a shout-out & some "big ups" to the Unitarian Universalist Community Church of Santa Monica, who stop by Mental Health Day Care for Adults the final Sat. of each month & feed us pathetic homeless wretches a fine & bountiful meal.
Earlier today, as usual, we were offered chicken breasts, Swedish meatballs, lasagna (meat & vegetarian) rice w/ those little nuts in it, vegetables, green, macaroni, & potato salads, a dinner roll, choice of cookies, & ice cream. Second helpings for all. Yum. The editorial staff belches in delight. And has a few of the meatballs in a plastic bag that formerly held free multi-vitamins, courtesy of the UCLA med school, who came to check the health of the homeless this a. m., & to hand out the aforementioned vitamins, socks (ladies socks only this wk., sadly) & those socks that people who have sex wear when they're having it. Prophylactic devices, we think they're called. We're much too pure & unattractive to need those.
So thanks UCLA med students & thanks Unitarians. We hear you're not really that religious anyway. And Unitarianism is certainly better for upper-middle class white people than Xtian Science.
Perhaps humour illustrates it best.

Three children were talking about their religions."I'm a Catholic," said one, "And our symbol is the cross."
"I'm Jewish," said the second, "And our symbol is the Star of David."
The third child said, "I'm a Unitarian Universalist and our symbol is a candle in a cocktail glass!"
A Unitarian Universalist dies, and on the way to the afterlife encounters a fork in the road with two options: "to heaven" and "to a discussion of heaven." Without pausing, the UU heads right to the discussion of heaven.

What is the X6 good at? That isn't a rhetorical question. It seats four -- not five, or seven, like the X5 -- and the rear passengers must contend with the car's seriously sloped roof. The X6 is built alongside the X5 in South Carolina, so you'd think BMW would understand the havoc such a roofline wreaks on beehive hairdos.

The party's finally over: "Sir" Mick Jagger turns 65 today. Time to retire, you old wretch. And take the King of the Living Dead, Mr. Richard(s), with ya.
Also on this date, sixty yrs. ago (1948): President Harry S. Truman signed Executive Order 9981 (as referenced just a few days ago here, in the comments) allowing "black" Americans to get shot dead just like their "white" American cousins in the service of "their" gov't.

Friday, July 25, 2008

You'd think Ben Stein would know better than to cast the "Fuhrer" analogies around casually, but he seems to have gone off the deep end in the last few months. Maybe he's just hanging about w/ bad influences (Mormon moron) Glenn Beck being the latest, doubtless it's frustration that his party has stuck itself w/ the 21st century Bob Dole as a putative candidate, while the Dems have someone who can string together several sentences at a time & appears thoughtful rather than brain-dead, but Stein (& many other Repubs; wait for it, the hysteria will only mount) came up w/ a good one yesterday.

STEIN: I want -- I'm glad you brought up this Denver thing. I don't like the idea of Senator Obama giving his acceptance speech in front of 75,000 wildly cheering people. That is not the way we do things in political parties in the United States of America. We have a contained number of people in an arena. Seventy-five-thousand people at an outdoor sports palace, well, that's something the Fuehrer [sic] would have done. And I think whoever is advising Senator Obama to do this is bringing up all kinds of very unfortunate images from the past.

BECK: Well, yeah, you know what? I've been -- I've been saying that we're headed towards a Mussolini-style presidency forever.
STEIN: Well, I think --
BECK: I mean it's crazy.
STEIN: It's a scary situation. I mean, I think he has to recognize some bounds on his own ego. I understand politicians are politicians because they have ego deficit problems and they try to cure them by having lots of worship and adulation and adoration. But 75,000 people screaming at an outdoor arena, that's just too much. It's just -- it's scarily authoritarian.

But the best part: "Contained number of people in an arena." Ben likes his politics like himself. Buttoned down w/ a stick up the ass. Gawd forbid there should be any spontaneity or inspiration. What would you bet that if McCain could pull off something like this, Stein would be calling it a new day in America, blah, blah, blah?
Actually finished 26 July 2008 @ 1119.

Continuing from yesterday's "Did You Know?" (truncated due to time constraints) we link you to Chuck Norris's Human Events column, which inspired this.
This reporter remembers when our crypto-fascist parental units subscribed to the paper version (well, there were only paper versions in the long ago early 1960s) of Human Events but you can bet your ass that even John Wayne wouldn't have had a column in it in those days. The pamphlet was (and still is) about a half-step to the left of the John Birch society, but there was no "celebrity" (if you can call Norris that) fetishism.
One of (alright, the only) thing we remember from those halcyon days was that Human Events had its knickers in a knot over allegations that the United States Post Office was complaining about people writing "This is a republic, not a democracy," on envelopes. In retrospect that sounds like a bunch of crap, why would the P. O. care, & what could they do, but it was part & parcel of the right-wing paranoia that continues to this day.
Now that we've wallowed in nostalgia, we'll continue our time wasting by thoroughly examining Massa Norris's latest. He's on about the word "nigger." Perhaps he just resents the limitations on his use of it:

Blacks can, but whites can't.

Oooooh, "racism."

This is more than a race issue and far more than a debate over freedom of speech. When will we learn that just because we can say something doesn't mean that we should? Once again, we're confusing liberty for licentiousness. It is a classic example of what happens when a society leaves its moral absolutes: Everything becomes culturally relative, with each deciding what's right in his own eyes. Language is one more infected arena in America's societal degradation.
Think about it. What word is nasty or unwholesome anymore? There are no "bad words." Words once considered evil are now terms of endearment. There's the B-word, the D-word, the A-word, the F-word, etc. Even bleeps are mere blips on America's moral radar screens. When ministers use G-- d--- in their sermons and moral activists threaten to cut off a presidential candidate's genitals and call him the N-word, can't we see the signs that we're heading in the wrong direction? We have become desensitized to everything, from profanity to pornography.

No mention of our desensitization to rapacious violence perpetrated on those of "duskier" skin tone, or different sexual orientation, or wymyn, often by agents of the United Snakes Gov't., as perpetuated by the liberal mainstream media. (Do you watch the evening network news? When was the last time the body of an American, as opposed to a swarthy insurgent or Talibani was displayed?) But that's America's Culture o' Death for you. Murder, destruction, etc.? A-OK. A glimpse of a life-giving female breast on the tube? Sin!! Shame!! Abomination!! A titty!! Oh no, what if Junior saw it & remembers?
Words once evil are now endearing? Why, yes, they are, as slang changes, as oppressed groups take possession of the words used to oppress them (The nerve of those young colored people & queers!) & so on. We're surprised he didn't complain about the use of "bad" & "dope," or "it's da bomb" (terribly insensitive to people killed by suicide bombers, after all) as positive adjectives/phrases. "Golly Gee Whillikers," says Mr. Clean-Mouth, "we can't even understand what the coloreds are saying, & our decent young white people are starting to imitate them!"
As we typed yesterday: "It's OK to use the phrase "God Bless [Fill in Blank Space]," but asking "God" to damn something is wrong? (Why worship the Hebrew War God if you can't get him to kick your enemies' asses?)
These lines deserve special attention, so we'll repeat them:

Everything becomes culturally relative, with each deciding what's right in his own eyes. Language is one more infected arena in America's societal degradation.

You certainly have no right, as an American, to decide what's right or wrong. That's what the gov't. & the busybodies are for. Where did we even get the idea that we aren't children who need big gov't. to protect us from thinking for ourselves, or the teaching of evolution or what have you? We certainly remember Mr. Norris as being in favor of as much gov't. as possible, regulating as many aspects of our life as possible. Don't you?
And any one who could type a sentence like that last one has no right to complain about language in any way, shape or form. Hope your arena clers up soon. Tried methycillin?
The world has changed around Chuck, & he's definitely not down w/ it.

Today's America is certainly not the one in which I grew up during the '40s and '50s. Profanity of any sort was wrong back then and frowned upon by most in private or public use. Today profanity has become a positive form of expression, with studies even showing that it releases stress and boosts morale at the workplace!

No, it's not the world he was raised in. (It's debatable if he "grew up" at all.) This really is low-hanging fruit, we'll pass on listing all the incredible hypocrisy, repression, segregation, racism, sexism & the rest of the litany of Mr. Norris's precious '40s & '50s. Remember, though, that to Chuck & his ilk, hypocrisy & repression are the ways to go. They build "character" & deaden minds.
Profanity does release stress & boost morale. Chuck doesn't think that's a very good idea though, does he? (If the words weren't considered so dirty & forbidden, they wouldn't have that effect. Think about that for a minute, Karate Boy.) Ever wonder how long he'd last in an 0800-1700 day job? He'd be whining & pissing his pants about his precious "freedoms" w/in a wk.!
We know that Mr. Norris isn't much of a science fan ("Don't teach any of that evolution crap garbage near me!!") but would it be too much trouble to have a study or two done proving that hearing "fuck," instead of "duck," "luck," "buck," and the like causes actual damage to children's minds? It might hurt their feelings? Isn't sensitivity to the feelings of others the very definition of being a pussy? (Would Chuck use that word? In that context? Maybe we should just ban it entirely. Who cares if it has several meanings? "Pussywillow. Tee hee.") And our children & their children (It never stops.) won't beat the terrorists by being "pussies."
Of course, Chuck's real interest is blind obedience & repression. Train the little fucks that certain words are intrinsically bad & should never be said (especially if "other" people use those words a lot) & Chuck's element are in a much better position to dissuade people from certain ideas & concepts w/o examining them.
Chuckie's other real interest? Why, book sales. All of the first half of his column leads to a plug for Black Belt Patriotism, his upcoming (as if your lunch is about to come up) tome, & a few selections therefrom. What saying (or not saying) "poopie doodie underpants" or "Die, you commie rat bastard!!" has to do w/ "patriotism" is a question for someone else to ask (& we'd love to hear Norris's reply) but let's see how dedicated to his country he is. We should first note that he's an Alan Keyes type, who has little or no interest in the Constitution, which doesn't mention "gawd" or "the creator," but thinks the Declaration of Independence is the be all & end all of American thought.

"...The Declaration of Independence set America's course. Though we have sometimes drifted from its highest principles, all Americans have ever had to do was steer by its compass to acknowledge or rediscover the inherent equality of slaves, women, the poor, Indians, and the unborn. All were -- and are -- children of God, endowed by their creator with 'certain unalienable rights.' …
"The Founders could not immediately abolish slavery. It was too entrenched in the economy of the South, but the Declaration eroded its foundations in a way that made its end inevitable. That 'all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights' is one of the most powerful principles ever enunciated in the history of politics."
And that power can be unleashed again to help us in our day. The sooner we get back to our Founders' words, our country's original calling, the sooner we will start treating one another (red, yellow, black and white) as our Founders' [sic] prescribed and the sooner we will get beyond these slanderous debates about language and humanity. It's time to grow up, America -- to move beyond the arguments of yesteryear. You're older than 200 now. It's time to act your age.

Slavery is just terrible, but we can't have (white) people starving if we get rid of it. W/ these fucks, the economy (or just a chance to get another damn nickel) trumps humanity every time, doesn't it? That Declaration sure "eroded its foundations," huh? But it withered away eventually, & it's not as if we had to have a big ol' war or anything, so sincere were we about our Declaration. And brown people don't seem to enter into his equation at all. They'll have to stop invading us by sneaking over the border & having too many children before they can be included w/ the red, yellow, black & white. Hey, how 'bout those "red" people, anyway? America's really worked out well for them, hasn't it? Good thing we were able to free them from the personal responsibility of taking care of their own land. The ladies? Only took about a century & a half for them to get the right to vote. Love that Declaration! What a foundation!! Or, sometimes. a foundation-eroder!! It's two mints in one!
So stop these "slanderous (?) debates about language & humanity!!" Chuck knows what's best for all of us, no "slanderous debate" needed. It's time to act your age, not your hat size, America!!

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Some words are "good." Some words are "bad." Often nothing more than one letter can make the difference.
It's OK to use the phrase "God Bless [Fill in Blank Space]," but asking "God" to damn something is wrong? (Why worship the Hebrew War God if you can't get him to kick your enemies' asses? After all, you're so righteous you don't even say "fuck.")
We may have more on this tomorrow. Or not.

Why are we Internet-addicted? Being able to find stuff like this purely by accident, as the result of a few clicks.

The three-part Ra cycle was modified by Christians into the trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. One misconception of Christianity is that the wrathful God of the Old Testament somehow faded into the background after the coming of Christ. In fact, He never left and the public still misses him, as evidenced by the popularity of the all-powerful Father in the Star Wars saga. In that trinity, Darth Vader was the Father, Luke Skywalker was the Son and Obi-Wan Kenobi was the Holy Ghost.
Deadly daughter Who was Hitler's mythic daughter? Western religion does not allow for a dark goddess, so Sekhmet emerged in cinema in that early war year, 1939.
Behold the young warrior Dorothy, demanding strength from her weak inner men. From the man of straw, she drew a bundle of sticks, the fasces of fascism. From the tin man, she forged steel for bullets and armor for tanks. From the cowardly lion, she demanded the courage of the lioness Sekhmet. She killed rival witches in murders disguised as accidents. Slippers dipped in ruby blood; soon the red torrent would rinse her hair.
Now she becomes Scarlett, Witch of the South, a widow dancing on the corpse of her husband. Men run off to war on the false promise of her tease. She yearns to be tamed by the pure and honorable Ashley but is doomed to coupling with the equally black-hearted Rhett. She can only give birth to death and a life cut short. Cursed is her womb.

This stuff is always best when written clearly & spelled correctly. The site itself is not painful to the eyes. Yet lunacy (although the writer seems to believe he's Ra, the Sun Gawd of the Egyptians, a solatic rather than a lunatic) prevails. The above is a mere extract. Visit for more fun. (We thought we had problems.)

Another boondoggle in the works to funnel more money to (un-)American defense firms who do their best to support the Republican Party, knowing that under right-wing administrations more funds will be given to said companies, insuring a decadent life-style for the executives & some of the stockholders.

State Department officials say the upgrades would greatly enhance the F-16s’ ability to strike insurgents accurately, while reducing the risk to civilians. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because Congress was weighing the plan, said the timing was driven by deadlines of the American contractor, Lockheed Martin.

Yep, it's all because of Lockheed Martin's deadlines. That's what counts here. And like hell the upgrades will enhance accuracy in striking insurgents. None of this crap ever works as advertised, or as presented by the running dog Yankee news media. Not to mention that Americans dealing "death from above" (Sound religious & holy to you? It isn't, it's cowardly.) can't tell the difference between insurgent gatherings & wedding parties. Maybe the Pakistani Air Force will do a better job; we're not holding our breath on that, however.

Pakistan agreed to buy about 70 F-16s in the 1980s, and about 40 were delivered before Congress cut off all aid and military sales in 1990, citing Pakistan’s secret development of nuclear weapons.

A new deal was struck after the Sept. 11 attacks to allow Pakistan to buy newer models, in part to reward Pakistan’s cooperation in fighting terrorism.

And in part to reward American cos. that reward Republicans. Not to mention that the outrage about Pakistan's development of nuclear weapons fell by the wayside soon enough. And the alleged distribution of nuclear technology to North Korea & Iran? A. Q. Khan, remember? (Now released from the horrible punishment of "house arrest" he received.) Whatever, says the current admin. We also have some memory of Richard Armitage telephoning ol' Pervy Musharraf & advising him that we'd nuke his ass into Gen. Curtis LeMay's proverbial Stone Age if he didn't cooperate. So why the fuck do we have to provide dime one to him in addition? So our taxpayer dollars can go from Lockheed Martin et al. to the coffers of the Republican Party. No fucking wonder the Party of Lincoln™ is opposed to public campaign financing. They already have it.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

We can only hope that mobile phone users will soon be treated w/ the opprobrium now reserved for smokers.

In the memo he sent to about 3,000 faculty and staff Wednesday, he says children should use cell phones only for emergencies because their brains are still developing.
Adults should keep the phone away from the head and use the speakerphone or a wireless headset, he says. He even warns against using cell phones in public places like a bus because it exposes others to the phone’s electromagnetic fields.

"Hey, you stupid freak!!! Get your fucking electro-magnetic field away from me!! What's the matter w/ you? Can't you live for ten minutes w/o sharing your banal, pointless observations w/ another mouth-breathing idiot?"
Does Dr. Herberman think using a cell 'phone will make children even stupider & more pathetic than their parents, or is he afraid of cancer? Trying to put himself out of a job? No, America will be causing cancer as long as its Made-in-China plastic flag continues to wave.

You live by the sword, etc. Or is it, "You lie down w/ dogs, you get up w/ fleas?" Either way, RobertNovak, evil Catholic, if that isn't redundant, was taken by the McCain campaign, which seems to be skittering out of control right along w/ its candidate. (For details, see The Internet, or the "liberal" media. Though even the "conservative" media seems to have noticed that the Party of Lincoln™ has nominated a real prize.)
Here's more or less what happened to Bobbo on Mon.

"I got a suggestion from a very senior McCain aide late yesterday afternoon that he was going to announce it this week,'' Novak told Fox News Tuesday. "They didn't want it to come out the way it was going to come out, and they suggested I put it out.
"I then called another senior person who said, 'I can't talk about that, but wouldn't this be a terrific week to announce it, that is with Obama getting the headlines?' So I just put something on the Internet."
"I've since have been told by certain people that this was a dodge, they were trying to get a little publicity to rain on Obama's campaign,'' Novak told Fox. "That's pretty reprehensible if it's true, but we'll find out in a few days. "

Ooooh, reprehensible. Poor Robert must feel so dirty & used. As reprehensible as naming Valerie Plame as a CIA agent? Who can say? Reprehensibility is, after all, in the eye of the beholder.
But, but, don't go away, 'cause that's merely the beginning of the Prince of Darkness's possibly worst wk. ever. Dig this, from this very a. m.

“I didn’t know I hit him. ... I feel terrible,” a shaken Novak told reporters from Politico and WJLA as he was returning to his car. "He's not dead, that's the main thing." Novak said he was a block away from 18th and K streets Northwest, where the accident occurred, when a bicyclist stopped him and said he had hit someone. He said he was cited for failing to yield the right of way.
The bicyclist was David Bono, a partner at Harkins Cunningham, who was on his usual bike commute to work at 1700 K St. N.W. when he witnessed the accident.
As he traveled east on K Street, crossing 18th, Bono said "a black Corvette convertible with top closed plows into the guy. The guy is sort of splayed into the windshield.”

Let's review. Novak alleges he's unaware he hit anyone, yet the witness says the pedestrian was "sort of splayed into the windshield.” Would it be unreasonable to conclude that Novak is either a liar (& there is a record of many yrs. in D. C. to consult) or in some stage of dementia?
He's certainly suffering from one sort of dementia. He's a 77-yr.-old spinmeister who drives a black convertible Corvette™. How lame can one get?

Novak, 77, has earned a reputation around the capital as an aggressive driver, easily identified in his convertible sports car. In 2001, he cursed at a pedestrian on the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 13th streets Northwest for allegedly jaywalking. “’Learn to read the signs, [bodily orifice]!’ Novak snapped before speeding away,” according to an item in The Washington Post’s Reliable Source column. Novak explained to the paper: "He was crossing on the red light. I really hate jaywalkers. I despise them. Since I don't run the country, all I can do is yell at 'em. The other option is
to run 'em over, but as a compassionate conservative, I would never do that." Two years later, the same column reported that Novak had gone to a racing school in Florida. "I've wanted to be a racecar driver all my life, and anyone who has watched me drive can tell you that,” Novak said.

We have here an automobile bully, who is either lying or demented. How many hours until his next telebsion appearance as an "experienced, knowledgeable pundit?"

Found the AP version of this item on the second page of the Incredible Shrinking Newspaper's™ Beez-ness section this a. m., leading us to the original story. In the Ironist-in-Chief's own words:

"There's no question about it. Wall Street got drunk -- that's one of the reasons I asked you to turn off the TV cameras -- it got drunk and now it's got a hangover. The question is how long will it sober up and not try to do all these fancy financial instruments," the president said Friday at a fundraiser for Republican congressional candidate Pete Olson.

This took place at a private house in Houston, we're guessing more likely to have been in a very nice (though perhaps not Candy Spelling quality) domicile in River Oaks rather than somewhere in the North Ward.

"Then we got a housing issue, not in Houston, evidently, not in Dallas, because Laura was over there trying to buy a house today," Bush said of first lady Laura Bush. "I like Crawford. Unfortunately after eight years of asking her to sacrifice, I'm now no longer the decision maker. She'll be deciding, thanks for the suggestion. I suggest you don't yell it out when she's here. I did tell her, I said honey, we've been on government pay now for 14 years, go slow."
The crowd in attendance laughed loudly during Bush's comments before his voice trailed off.
"But it's, uh, I'm losing my train of thought."

What a fucking comedian he is. Most of the nation is doubled over laughing. Oh? They're not laughing? They're doubled over in pain? OK. Anyone w/ his money, power, & influence, who was appointed to the presidency, should have had the common simple decency to return all of his salary & most of his expense account to the U.S. Treasury. But he was playing to his base, the piggie classes, in their closed to the public, turn off the cameras kaffeeklatsch. "Ha ha, get it? Government pay. He's so witty." Even Cull-ee-fahrneea's Goobnernator Schwarzenegger only takes a dollar a year. Symbolic, but still.
Just as we need Highway Patrols & police departments to keep drunks from running us over on the freeways & streets, we need some "anti-free market" regulation to keep Wall Street's drunken binges from rolling (& rolling over) the entire nation's economy.
Actually, we need legislation outlawing investment & speculation entirely. Remember grade school, where the lesson of the Jamestown Colony was inculcated in all of us? The spoiled but otherwise healthy aristocratic colonists were told that if they didn't work, they wouldn't eat. A lesson This Great Nation of Ours™ seems to have forgotten.

Obligatory Daily Item to indicate there may not be many items posted today, as if anyone were on the edge of her/his seat waiting. (We'll be wallowing in self-pity for the rest of the day, don't mind us.)

It's official!! Gee Dub has hit, if not rock bottom, as low as any American president since the invention of opinion polling.

Overall, 21% of Americans say that they approve of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president, 72% disapprove, and 7% are undecided.

The real wonder is how anyone could be "undecided." Are these the "independent, moderate swing voters" who may make the final presidential decision, assuming Diebold & various other Republican agencies stay out of it? (A big assumption there.)

From the Chicken Noodle Network'sLate Edition (scroll down until part two of the interview, it's a loooong way) yesterday, wimpy Wolf Blitzer (What's his real name again?) interviews Secretary of Stupid Statements Condoleezza Rice:

BLITZER: If they say the United States should leave, what would the U.S. do?
RICE: Well we are there at the invitation of the Iraqi government. But I think you will find that the Iraqis recognize that they need and want a partner. What we have to recognize is that we have achieved an enormous amount over the last year, really since the surge, a lot. Violence is down, the Iraqi political system is beginning to function. You have Sunni leaders coming back into the government. And I think we would be foolish and they would be foolish to put at risk those gains by too rapid a decline in the American forces there.

(Bold face ours.) Did you hear that? Just when did the Iraqi government "invite" some 140,000 United Snakes forces & another 180,000 contractors into Iraq? Really, when? Is there an engraved invitation that Secretary Rice could show the American people, to explain just what the fuck we're doing there? Seems to us that one Saddam Hussein was the "government" when we first went there. Did he invite us? "Invitation of the Iraqi government," our ample ass! Not to mention that the "gains" made are mostly a function of bribing tribal leaders not to shoot at U. S. forces, & the completion of various ethnic cleansing projects by both Sunnis & Shiites, which will only result in further conflict along the "aspirational time horizon." Gackk!! Corporate weasel-speak from Standard Oil Director Rice.
And from the Chief Nitwit himself:

"And they have no disregard for human life."—Describing the brutality of Afghan fighters, Washington, D.C., July 15, 2008

Does he ever even listen to himself?
All of these fucking people, from Bush & Cheney down to the merest spokesmodel for this administration of evil clowns can't be impeached, hauled off in chains & waterboarded or strung up until their shoulders are dislocated or burned w/ Zippos™ soon enough for us. Six mos. until Bush & the rest of them are sad unfortunate history. We can only hope that some part of the U. S. economy, or This Great Nation of Ours™ itself are still standing when that glorious day arrives.

From the "Ha ha, funny, huh, hyuk-hyuk?" file we found this testimony to humanity.

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. - Two practical jokers are behind bars for setting their passed-out drinking buddy's crotch ablaze while boozing in Grover Beach. Matthew Craig Pillers and Jack Brent Nicholas Keiffer pleaded no contest to a felony great bodily injury charge.
Elliot Tuleja was passed out when the men poured cologne on the man's groin and set him on fire on Jan. 18. Tuleja had second-degree burns on his testicles.

Our point is that we highly doubt that poor passed-out Elliot sustained burned "testicles." Chances are it was his scrotum which was burned. Think about it. In order to have rec'd. burns on his actual gonads, his scrotum would have to have been burned away, wouldn't it?
What ever happened to simple "tea-bagging" as far as homoerotic behavior between straight male friends?

"I cannot and I will not vote for Sen. John McCain as a matter of conscience," [he] said. "But what a sad and melancholy decision this is for me and many other conservatives. Should John McCain capture the nomination as many assume, I believe this general election will offer the worst choices for president in my lifetime."
[H]e definitely would not vote for Democratic Sens. Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, "based on their virulently anti-family policy positions."
"If these are the nominees in November, I simply will not cast a ballot for president for the first time in my life," he said.
"These decisions are my personal views and do not represent the organization with which I'm affiliated," he concluded. "They do reflect, however, my deeply held convictions about the institution of the family, about moral and spiritual beliefs and about the welfare of our country."

"... While I am not endorsing Senator John McCain, the possibility is there that I might."

Or could it? You never know, do you?

Dobson and other evangelical leaders unimpressed by McCain increasingly are taking a lesser-of-two-evils approach to the 2008 race. Dobson and his guest, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Albert Mohler, spend most of the pretaped Focus on the Family radio program criticizing Democratic candidate Barack Obama, getting to McCain at the very end.
[...]
"There's nothing dishonorable in a person rethinking his or her positions, especially in a constantly changing political context," Dobson said in a statement to the AP. "Barack Obama contradicts and threatens everything I believe about the institution of the family and what is best for the nation. His radical positions on life, marriage and national security force me to reevaluate the candidacy of our only other choice, John [Sidney] McCain [III]."
[...]
Of his new position, Dobson said in the statement to the AP, "If that is a flip-flop, then so be it."

Fine & dandy, Jimbo, but let's not hear any "he's a flip-flopper" crap about Sen. Obama from you or anyone who takes your endorsement, now that we know we're in a "constantly changing political context."

Dobson is considered a powerful voice in conservative evangelical Christianity; his radio broadcast reaches 1.5 million U.S. listeners daily. Critics argue his influence is waning, pointing to a younger generation of leaders pushing to broaden the movement's agenda.

Place your rodent device here & click to see one of the "younger generation of leaders." Oh, wait. It's Jim's rad SK8er son, Ryan, who hasn't posted on his hip website since January. Must be busy broadening his agenda. Or polishing his skateboard, if you know what we mean.

Today is Monday, July 21, the 203rd day of 2008. There are 163 days left in the year.(Can it be over soon enough?)

In 1841, the British humour magazine Punch was first published.(We like to think of ourself as carrying on the tradition. We also like to imagine ourself w/ huge leather bat-wings, among other fantasies. Is Punch still published?)

Good news from the past: Ninety yrs. ago (1918) Czar Nicolas II & his parasitic family received their due justice, execution-style, from the Bolsheviks.

Seventy yrs. ago (1938) Douglas Corrigan, claiming to be headed for Calif., flew to Ireland, thus entering history as "Wrong Way Corrigan." It is suspected that he knew what he was doing all along.

In 1944, two ammunition ships exploded in Port Chicago, CA.

Below: Brothers w/ a bomb at Port Chicago.

(Almost all of the 322 people killed were African-American, because Navy policy at the time was for black folk to work as stevedores, or as stewards for admirals & other such scum. [John Sidney McCains I & II, for example.] It is now conceded that safety standards for ammo loading were lax, due to U. S. Navy racism.)

Sixty yrs. ago, in 1948, South Carolina Governor Sen. Strom Thurmond was endorsed by a cracker convention in Birmingham, Ala., because that asswipe Truman was going to let "niggers" serve w/ white people in the Armed Services, among other complaints.(We just wish some Republicans opposed to Grumpy Grampy McCain would do the same thing. It's not too late.)

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Attended the "glow" something or another festival around the S. M. Pier last night, the closest we've ever been to a "rave," & though we have done some raving in the so-called real world (as even the casual reader here will have noticed) this was no doubt the closest we'll ever get to a "rave." And are we tired. As some of our fellow aging wretches noted, this was the first time in recent memory any of us had heard the phrase "last call" used in person. That's right, no "X" or what have you, The Editor himself had only a mere sip of a margarita to remind himself how awful tequila is, but all were rather run down by the midpoint of the 12 hr. festivities.
As to the event itself, suffice it to say that by the end of the '60s we were quite over light shows, & those were accompanied by music performed by live humans playing instruments, not the brain-dead, soulless, robotic "Gas Music from Jupiter" that today's young people use to accompany their soulless computer-generated post-random color patterns &...blah, blah, blah, mumble mumble...etc., etc.
Nap time.

Below: First Fascist on the Moon. Official NASA Photo:Wernher Von Braun

39 yrs. ago today, on a heavily guarded sound stage in Culver City, California, the first test pilot from Ohio left trash on another object in our solar system, Luna. (This part of this item has been vaguely modified from the original of a yr. ago. The following part is entirely original.)

Today's Cheesecake: Mrs. Peel, who hits the big Seven-Zero today.Per Wikipedia she is officially Dame Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg, & there is indeed nothing like a dame. Voyeurs in general, & male humanoids who reached puberty in the mid-'60s especially, may click here for further photos. Thank you Google™.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

And it's almost always worth stealing something from The Divine Mr. M. Today we found the city of the future, here & now, built on the backs of virtual slave laborers (No, we do not mean some digitized avatar, ignorant children of today! We're talking physical labor w/ your hands, etc.) from south Asia, the Philippines, Indonesia & wherever else they can find them. Very Blade Runner. Probably won't be too long before Americans who can use a rivet gun will be there slaving away w/ the rest of them.

It is a nice shot, though, and apparently taken from another bldg., probably the soon-to-be world's tallest, which is doubtless being erected as we type.

You might want to click to Mr. M's site, as he cropped it rather well, & it's bigger; the above version is from the original flickr™ spot.

Below: A sad collection of aging Caucasian males get together to decide the fate of the Persian Gulf/Middle East area. Good luck, brain-dead, necktie-wearing conformist wretches! Photo: Denis Balibouse/AP.

Will official United Snakes reaction to Nouri al-Maliki's "Yankee Go Home!" pronouncement

Asked when U.S. forces would leave Iraq, he responded, "As soon as possible, as far as we're concerned."

"We hope the Iranian people understand that their leaders need to make a choice between cooperation, which would bring benefits to all, and confrontation, which can only lead to further isolation," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in a statement after talks in Geneva between Iran and the European Union as well as a U.S. envoy.

We can only hope that Americans understand the same about our leaders, especially as we are alleged to have an actual choice in the election of said leaders, unlike Iran, where a council of religious douchebags decide who will be allowed to run for office &...What? Corporate & media interests, yes...Two parties, & not a State Quarter's difference between the two...(Value of party difference inflated since George Wallace's time.)...Generally foolish & ignorant electorate, umm-hmm...You're right, forget we said anything. We're screwed too. Like, totally, man.

Per the AP, the White House helo fleet will need 28 (?!) choppers to ferry around whichever corporate tool is president, an increase of 9 from the current 19.

The leather tuck'n'roll jobs for these birds must not be done on the cheap in TJ.

At $400 million apiece, the helicopters far exceed a prime example McCain uses on the campaign trail to rail against congressional pork-barrel spending, a $230 million "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska. The British have bought the same base model helicopter for $57 million each.

$343 million per for "amenities?" Yikes!! In true defense procurement style, the price of the new fleet has almost doubled, just in the three yrs. since the contract was awarded.

Originally carrying a hefty price tag at $6.1 billion, the fleet of 28 helicopters being built to fly the next president is now projected to cost $11.2 billion.

As The Editor here is of one-quarter wop-a-dago descent, the following ethnic insult is approved by the Just Another Blog™ Ethnic Insult Committee. The helicopters are not even American-made, but come from an Italian firm, via an "American" defense giant. Does the phrase "Fix It Again, Tony (as in 'FIAT')" come to mind?

In 2005, the Pentagon awarded the contract, itself a subject of controversy. Connecticut-based Sikorsky Aircraft, which had always supplied helicopters for the president, was beaten in the bidding process by Lockheed Martin. The Maryland-based firm proposed a variation of a European helicopter built by Agusta-Westland.

[...]

Congress and the Pentagon are already reviewing the program to determine how to cope with the contract growth. In an audit, the Government Accountability Office has also raised concerns about the helicopter's weight and its new rotor system.

This provided another opportunity for Sen. McCain to flip his flop, apparently in mid-sentence.

McCain labeled the contract growth a "scandal" before asking to revise his assessment "in a more polite way." He said the program is part of "an out-of-control procurement system that has to be fixed."

Give you a good idea of the presumed Republican nominee's judgement? Crap on a crutch. Do we need this kind of off-the-cuff foolishness in foreign policy statements?

If anyone gives a flying whatever at a rolling you name it about our most recent encounter w/ Marine One, you may increase your boredom quotient here.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Netroots Nation.
The firm & official policy of Just Another Blog (From L. A.)™ is anti-nationalist. Also, these people are like a high school clique (Did they invite us? No.) & are merely liberal Democrats in "progressive" clothing. We'd like to see one of them try to destroy capitalism, or even assassinate a businessman or a right wing figure. Hmpf.

They wrap it up, we take it out to the cans on the street for all to see. (Or recycle.)
Annals of Nihilism

Israel will almost surely attack Iran’s nuclear sites in the next four to seven months — and the leaders in Washington and even Tehran should hope that the attack will be successful enough to cause at least a significant delay in the Iranian production schedule, if not complete destruction, of that country’s nuclear program. Because if the attack fails, the Middle East will almost certainly face a nuclear war — either through a subsequent pre-emptive Israeli nuclear strike or a nuclear exchange shortly after Iran gets the bomb.

The author sees only one problem w/ this.

The problem is that Israel’s military capacities are far smaller than America’s and, given the distances involved, the fact that the Iranian sites are widely dispersed and underground, and Israel’s inadequate intelligence, it is unlikely that the Israeli conventional forces, even if allowed the use of Jordanian and Iraqi airspace (and perhaps, pending American approval, even Iraqi air strips) can destroy or perhaps significantly delay the Iranian nuclear project.

We're glad that it only takes American approval for bases in the sovereign democratic nation of Iraq to be used by Israel. We've really shown them about democracy.
Mr. Positive concludes:

Thus an Israeli nuclear strike to prevent the Iranians from taking the final steps toward getting the bomb is probable. The alternative is letting Tehran have its bomb. In either case, a Middle Eastern nuclear holocaust would be in the cards.

We think he really wants the United Snakes to do Israel's work for them, since the IDF may not be able to reduce as much of Iran as necessary to rubble, while he's sure the U. S. can handle the job.
The Contract on America
We're not so sure that can be done, as there may not be any American forces left to attack anyone, what w/ their being electrocuted left & right by shoddy KBR work.

And while the Pentagon has previously reported that 13 Americans have been electrocuted in Iraq, many more have been injured, some seriously, by shocks, according to the documents. A log compiled earlier this year at one building complex in Baghdad disclosed that soldiers complained of receiving electrical shocks in their living quarters on an almost daily basis.
Electrical problems were the most urgent noncombat safety hazard for soldiers in Iraq, according to an Army survey issued in February 2007. It noted “a safety threat theaterwide created by the poor-quality electrical fixtures procured and installed, sometimes incorrectly, thus resulting in a significant number of fires.”
The Army report said KBR, the Houston-based company that is responsible for providing basic services for American troops in Iraq, including housing, did its own study and found a “systemic problem” with electrical work.

Whatever happened to the Army Corps of Engineers? Or to combat engineers, who could build bridges (that worked) under enemy fire? What happened to the "Greatest Generation," who did the job w/o expecting a no-bid contract based on campaign contributions to the Republican Party? Just when did it become necessary that the defense of This Great Nation Of Ours™ turn a huge profit for everyone except those doing the fighting? (Who will, of course, if they return at all, after a few more tours in Afghanistan, get further screwed by the underfunded VA on return to our shores.)

Were this the radio, a personal message of this nature would be against FCC regulations. But it's merely the Internet, so all is well.
The woman who posted a comment last evening around 2210 is cordially invited to respond at our e-mail address, as well as read our response to her comment. Now that we see you're local, & why you were looking here in the first place, we can assure you that we're interested in that sort of thing as well. And we do look like our cartoon image on the right there, 'cept a bit older, perhaps. But you probably want a father figure anyway, don't you?

Thursday, July 17, 2008

We'll just use the tired cliche that a stopped clock is correct twice a day, w/ the caveat that in our digital age a stopped clock is often blinking "12:00" or showing how much time has elapsed since power was restored, to note that one of the many women we constantly revile here (let alone there – it's 'cause we expect better of them, sexist weasel that we are) Megan McArdle, has located an item that pretty well covers/uncovers the truth about terrorism. (Alright, not all of the truth about terrorism, but the truth about how it may actually affect us here in the United Snakes. That is, the terrorism perpetrated by Islamo-fascist & Amero-wackjob terrorists, not U. S. Gov't.-sponsored terrorism.)
Click here for a link to the full report, should you not want to increase Megan's alleged readership.
Here are the hot parts:

The premises:
1. The number of potential terrorist targets is essentially infinite.
2. The probability that any individual target will be attacked is essentially zero.
3. If one potential target happens to enjoy a degree of protection, the agile terrorist usually can readily move on to another one.
4. Most targets are "vulnerable" in that it is not very difficult to damage them, but invulnerable in that they can be rebuilt in fairly short order and at tolerable expense.
5. It is essentially impossible to make a very wide variety of potential terrorist targets invulnerable except by completely closing them down.
The policy implications:
1. Any protective policy should be compared to a "null case": do nothing, and use the money saved to rebuild and to compensate any victims.
2. Abandon any effort to imagine a terrorist target list.
3. Consider negative effects of protection measures: not only direct cost, but inconvenience, enhancement of fear, negative economic impacts, reduction of liberties.
4. Consider the opportunity costs, the tradeoffs, of protection measures.

Remember when Yankee pig-dogs were considered common-sense pragmatists, not scared little babies who want mommy to keep them from dying? Talk about your "nanny-state."

Rosa Brooks' column in the regional (soon to be missed, a little) cage liner is yet another "pick on Bush & McCain" screed, implying that neither one has kept their eyes on the Afghan ball. Really?
The most frightening part follows.

At best, we'll withdraw most of our troops from Iraq within two years and redeploy many in Afghanistan, but that would still be a far cry from the 400,000 troops the outgoing commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan thinks are really needed. (Bye-bye, Iraq quagmire, hello, Afghanistan quagmire!) At worst, we'll need to maintain a massive troop presence in two countries at once (All Quagmire, All the Time).
And no U.S. military strategy will succeed if it's not accompanied by a regional political and diplomatic strategy: Stabilizing Afghanistan is inextricably linked to diffusing Pakistan's political crises as well. Doing this adequately will take resources and patient, sustained attention.

In other words, the United Snakes is screwed, whether Sen. McCain cheats his way into office or the wishes of the people, as opposed to those of the Electoral College (or Stupreme Court) are honored & Sen. Obama takes office. As mentioned just yesterday, trouble is up in the 'Stan, along w/ the death toll.
A re-run of the late '80s & early '90s may be about to occur, w/ a slight difference: The U. S. of A., already in an economic meltdown, gets itself bogged down in Afghanistan. (Note this well: Once America is perceived as losing, the paid-to-fight warlords will be knocking each other over to be first to get back in the good graces of the Taliban.) Russia (formerly the Soviet Union, still a bunch of fascist mystics) enriched by a sudden jump in oil & gas prices, may just decide to "help" the Taliban/AQ forces. And the U. S. may collapse under the weight of 400,000 quagmired troops (Of course, it will take five yrs. or so for all the forces needed to get there, once someone realizes we're underpersoned to begin w/. One thing America doesn't do is learn from history, even last wk.'s.) just as the Soviet Union eventually did. Couldn't happen to a nicer, or more deserving empire.

We don't give a rat's patoot about who said "Nigger, nigger, nigger." But there is something interesting in Bill O'Reilly's statement.

On Wednesday, O'Reilly said he had withheld the N-word remark because "I'm not in the business of creating some kind of controversy that's not relevant to the general subject -- one civil rights leader disparaging another over policy.
As for how the N-word comment got out, O'Reilly said "some weasel leaked it to the Internet."

You got it. To Mr. O'Reilly, Sen. Obama is not the presumptive presidential candidate of the majority party. He's "another civil rights leader." Which should make Sen. McCain an ex-POW involved in banking fraud.
And wasn't it probably a "Fox," rather than a "weasel," who leaked it?
P. S.: Should the Times be capitalizing the "n" in "N-word?" What's the style book say?

Someone who claimed to want to "help the homeless" (If it weren't alliterative, would they even care?) suffered & died. Madeline Stoner, "an expert on homelessness [who] advised policymakers on how to prevent it" (Nice job you've done so far, Toots.) among other liberal do-gooder crap, "spent a recent sabbatical as director of social services for SRO Housing Corp., a nonprofit group that develops housing on Los Angeles' skid row."
That's right, keep the fucking homeless people down on skid row where they belong. Those not blessed w/ enough money or insurance (we're joking there, we know that insurance never pays enough) to have their mental illness taken care of, who end up self-medicating w/ alcohol & other drugs not approved of by society on skid row should just stay the fuck down there, surrounded by the rest of life's losers. Gawd forbid some limousine liberal who donates guilt money to such organizations should have to look at someone whose hair isn't combed or something.
"Black Widows" Get Two Life Sentences Each
Also from the world of the unhoused, the two old con artists who moved up to murdering homeless men for insurance money were sentenced late Tues. A bit of justice is done. Not much, really, but some.

Bill Buckley's sister Patricia, mother of L. Brent Bozell III, among a litany of other offenses against human decency, followed her brother to the hell where he & Francisco Franco, among millions of others, are being tortured at this very moment (if the concept of time applies at all to the theological place of eternal damnation).

Mrs. Bozell was born into a Catholic family whose fortune originated in Central and South American oil fields.
[...]
With James R. Whelan, she was the co-author of "Catastrophe in the Caribbean: The Failure of America's Human Rights Policy in Central America" (1984).

Oh, you can just bet your sweet ass that someone whose Catholic family fortune came from stealing the natural resources of South & Central America had a sincere interest in "human rights" for the indigenous peoples of the area.
One other notable event in the old bat's life was her attempted use of violence against one exercising her right to free speech.

Mrs. Bozell was less public than many in her family, but in March 1971 she attracted press attention with an attempted physical confrontation with radical feminist Ti-Grace Atkinson at a Catholic University forum.Before an audience of 800, Atkinson said the Virgin Mary was more "used" than if she had participated in a sexual conception.

Afterward, Mrs. Bozell told The Washington Post: "If it comes down to violence for social protest, I do believe in it if there's adequate provocation. I went in there, heard blasphemy and acted."

There may indeed be a gawd, if Patty couldn't even whack Ti-Grace but hit a mic instead. Hope it hurt. And while we here at Just Another Blog™ do our best to offend anyone w/ religious sensibilities, we're not sure if "blasphemy" can even be committed by someone who's not a member of the offended religious institution. In other words, self-righteous jerks, why not let your gawd punish or slap the "offender" in your hoped-for afterlife, rather than attempting to take your gawd's justice into your own filthy original sin-stained hands?

She married L. Brent Bozell Jr., a National Review editor with whom she launched Triumph in 1966. The magazine lasted nearly a decade and, as the second-in-command editor, Mrs. Bozell helped shape its voice against legalized abortion and in favor of the traditional church in response to Vatican II reforms.

Among her 10 children was L. Brent Bozell III, who began the conservative Media Research Center watchdog group.

Ah yes, the "traditional" church. And we'll note on the way out the originality of name-giving among these clowns. Of course, when you're ruining the planet by over-populating it w/brain-dead drones, you must run out of names pretty quickly.

We mentioned Christopher Hitchens' insistence that there's a "battlefield" on which American victory is possible in Iraq. And mentioned that it's an occupation, not a war, & that there's no "battlefield" on which to declare victory (or "Mission Accomplished") just counterinsurgency, roadside ambushes, & the like.

Afghanistan (not the "central front in the war on terror," though perhaps it should be) is quite another story. Although some Iraqi/Palestinian style tactics have been adopted by Talibanis (suicide bombings not really part of the action there before the subjugation of Iraq, even during the Soviet occupation) there is definitely a battlefield there. Afghanistan is one of the few nations in all of Afrika & Asia that's never been successfully colonized by Euro-imperialists, & they didn't keep the Anglos & Slavs out by guerrilla tactics alone. They fought the old fashioned way, standing up & shooting. Granted, the terrain is ultra rugged, the locals know it like the backs of their hands, supplying invaders is difficult, & there've been plenty of ambushes & trickery.

Today, even w/ logistics not as difficult as in previous centuries thanks to the Wright Bros. & Sikorsky, things still aren't going as well as hoped. Here's the follow-up to the "Nine Americans Killed in Attack on Afghan Base" story you may have heard Monday.

Omar Sami, spokesman for the Nuristan provincial governor, said American and Afghan soldiers left the base Tuesday.

[...]U.S. troops abandoned a remote outpost in eastern Afghanistan where militants killed nine of their comrades this week, officials said Wednesday, in another sign of the struggle facing foreign and Afghan security forces strung out along the mountainous border.

[...]The violence is another indication of the growing strength of the Taliban-led insurgency, especially in Afghanistan's east, where the outpost near the village of Wanat was breached by militants on Sunday. Nine Americans were killed in the deadliest incident for U.S. forces in three years.

On Tuesday, the insurgents drove out the handful of police left behind to defend government offices in the village, but 50 more officers were deployed Wednesday and soon regained control, senior provincial police official Ghoolam Farouq said.

Yep, the surge worked (Not! And it took Brainiac Bush about five yrs. to figure out how many troops should have been there originally.) but despite Hitch's statement

I dare say the word of that [his imaginary "battlefield defeat"] would have spread to Afghanistan fast enough and, indeed, to other places where the enemy operates. Bear this in mind next time you hear any easy talk about "the hunt for the real enemy" or any loose babble that suggests that we can only confront our foes in one place at a time

the "insolent" (his word) Afghans have continued to attack, & apparently w/ some effect.

[...]The retreat from the eastern outpost will be considered a victory by the insurgents, and comes after a spate of security setbacks for President Hamid Karzai's government, including a spectacular Taliban jail break in the southern Kandahar province in June that freed about 900 inmates, and a spike in attacks alongside the border with Pakistan.

In response, Karzai has stepped up his rhetoric against neighboring Pakistan, whose lawless tribal areas adjacent to Afghanistan serve as sanctuaries for al-Qaida and other militants.

Karzai blames the attacks — including suicide bombings and cross-border raids — on Pakistan's intelligence service, alleging they are behind the insurgency in Afghanistan. Pakistan denies the charge saying Karzai is trying to create "an artificial crisis" to deflect attention from his own failings.The accusations have pitched relations between these key U.S. allies to their lowest point since [the] U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

The security experts here at Just Another Blog™ are not worried that United Snakes forces will actually do anything about Pakistani aid & comfort to the "insurgent forces," as they point out that Pakistan has nuclear weapons, & therefore the paper tiger Americans will not dare make any serious moves, but will continue artillery strikes & aerial bombardment from safety, like the cowards they are.

If any one was worried that U. S. forces would be taking on Pakistan as well as Iran before Election or Inauguration Day, relax. However, our security staff does fear that in exchange for Bush taking more mangos off their hands, the Indian gov't. may be persuaded to jump ugly w/ the Pakistani intelligence services.

The White House has now revealed the full extent of the historic agreement reached with India.

In return for American help with its civilian nuclear programme, India will export mangos to the US.

So that is uranium and plutonium for India and exotic fruits for America.

Of course, I am mischievously conflating two separate agreements, but it is not hard to see how the Indians feel they have got the better part of the bargain.

Please excuse the mischievous conflation. We're working on reducing it. Step One: Admit you have a problem.

Peter G. Gosselin, who's rec'd. mention in this collection of electrons twicerecently, appears in today's L. A. Times noting that 'Murkins may not be buying the Reaganite codswallop of unfettered free markets being the best of all possible ways to ensure that people who work for a living have enough money w/ which to live, & maybe even get ahead, or at least see their offspring do better than they did.

There may be a backlash against markets at the moment," acknowledged Kevin A. Hassett, economic studies director at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington and an advisor to presumed Republican presidential nominee John McCain. "But the backlash doesn't seem to be informed by any alternative view of how the world works."

Doublespeak or triplespeak? "Informed by," is a phrase that always makes us chuckle. And just what "alternative view" of how the "world works" does this AEI clown expect? As far as we know here, the world rotates on an axis tilted 23° from the plane of the ecliptic, while revolving around the sun in an elliptical orbit. Not to mention lunar effects on our little cosmic golfball.
Maybe Mr. McCain Advisor is suggesting that there's no way other than the glories of the free market for the house of financial cards to work to the advantage of AEI's funders, but we challenge him to show us any place on the face of this soon to be hotter globe where the unfettered forces of entrepreneurial, "risk-taking" greed have functioned well. Besides the amazing success stories of Russia & China, of course.
People in the middle of the road are reminded that their chances of being run over are doubled by standing in the middle of the road.

"Nobody in this country really believes in unfettered free markets, and nobody really believes in socialism," said UC Davis historian Eric Rauchway, but economic crises of the past have produced constituencies favoring the reining in of markets and regulation of the economy -- constituencies that ultimately grew large enough to produce change.

Yes, we mean you, Historian Rauchway. Get to one shoulder or the other.

Americans entered the new century convinced that "we had a new economy built on services and information technology that would let us win globally," said Harvard economist Robert Z. Lawrence."The whole premise of globalization in the year 2000 was that it worked well for us and the other developed countries but that the developing countries would need help," Lawrence said.Today, virtually all those optimistic assumptions have been turned on their heads."We've seen unprecedented growth in the developing countries, while the developed countries are being led into a slowdown by the United States," Lawrence said."We've found out that instead of services and information technology, it's all about oil and other commodities" that are not the nation's strong suit.

Services & infotech. Waiting tables (soon to be outsourced to robots controlled by night-shift workers in Bukina Faso) & crummy movies & crappy music for 'tweens, that are free to all once the first peer-to-peer sharer buys one copy & puts it up on the web.
Why have we paid any attention to any of the experts?

An investor who put a dollar in a broad market index fund early in this decade not only would have made no money by today but would have lost a little of his initial amount.
That's a far cry from the 1990s, when people told pollsters that they expected to make 15% annual gains indefinitely.

Golly, it's just too damn bad we couldn't get all the Social Security money in the markets sooner, isn't it?
H. Ross Perot's "giant sucking sound" is more of a swirling sound, as our excessive way of life flushes down the toilet.

Continuing from the item immediately below, we refer to USA Today for a change, so our wonderful readers may look at pictures & graphs instead of hurting their minds w/ cumbersome words.

David J. Lynch, USA TODAY

So this is what a day of reckoning feels like.

Already down 23% from its October high, the Dow Jones industrial average touches a two-year low. The Labor Department says wholesale prices are rising at their fastest pace since Ronald Reagan's first year in the White House. Embattled automaker and American icon General Motors suspends its dividend to stockholders. The last time that happened? 1922.

[...]

If it wasn't clear before Tuesday, it is now: This is no ordinary economic crisis, and it won't be over anytime soon. In fact, problems are multiplying. A year ago, the financial virus seemed confined to subprime mortgages, loans given to those with less-than-perfect credit. Now, much of the banking system appears rickety, and the U.S. economy has slowed to a crawl. But thanks to robust demand from still-growing countries such as China, the prices of commodities from oil to food have soared — hitting Americans from the gas pump to the grocery checkout.

"There's no hope of an early recovery at this point," says economist Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University. "The best-case scenario is we have a long but mild recession — and that's the best-case scenario."

Worst-case scenario: long, painful death from starvation or from a medical condition that can't be treated w/o money.

The Ninny-in-Chief attempted to, as used to be said, "jawbone" the whole mess. As usual, he appears not to have a clue.

A day after reports of losses by regional banks, causing some depositors to pull their money out, Mr. Bush held an unscheduled news conference at which he felt compelled to remind Americans that their deposits were insured up to $100,000.

“My hope is that people take a deep breath and realize that their deposits are protected by our government,” the president said. He added that economic growth “was not the growth we’d like” but expressed confidence that the country would overcome “a time of uncertainty.” The nation’s troubled financial system is “basically sound,” he added.

[...]

But concerns that consumer banking could succumb to the ills of the credit crisis clearly rattled official Washington, as Mr. Bush’s citation of the federal government’s insurance of bank deposits made clear.

Mr. Bush, at his news conference, also sought to demonstrate that he understood the hardships of Americans. “It’s been a difficult time for many American families who are coping with declining housing values and high gasoline prices.”

When asked about his statement in February that he had not heard forecasts that gasoline prices could reach $4 a gallon, Mr. Bush interrupted and replied, “Aware of it now.”

Mr. GrammBush ended his unscheduled presser by advising Americans not to whine like spoiled little titty babies, but instead to work harder, so their owners would have more money to invest in overseas jobs & facilities in order to "really get this economy rolling again."

Don't know what's w/ all the fucking horsecrap about this wk.'s New Yorker cover. (Maybe irony isn't dead yet, but it's no wonder satire closes on Sat. night; Americans are too GDF stupid to comprehend it.) In the interest of equal time:(Oddly enough, this one seems true to life, as opposed to the New Yorker cover. Hmmm...)

Her doctors and officials at the women's prison in Corona made the request in March because of her deteriorating health. Atkins also has had her left leg amputated and is paralyzed on her right side, her husband and attorney, James Whitehouse, told a parole hearing.

Whitehouse had argued that his wife was so debilitated that she could not even sit up in bed and told the parole board there was no longer a reason to keep her incarcerated.

Doesn't seem too likely she'll be stabbing any more pregnant starlets to death in a vain attempt to start a race war, nonetheless

Corrections Department spokeswoman Terry Thornton said Atkins' medical treatment and paying for prison guards to watch over her has cost state taxpayers more than $1.4 million since March.

The corrections department no longer would pay for Atkins' medical care or be required to guard her around the clock if she is released to her husband.

It's the principle of the thing. 'Oh, the victims' families!! Oh, what kind of message will this send? Oh, we can't spend any more money on schools or fighting wildfires. We have to keep threats to society locked up!! Oh, oh."

E-Z 4 U

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